DRYDEN FLIGHT RESEARCH CENTER - NEWS ROOM: NEWS RELEASES: NASA DRYDEN HISTORIAN RECEIVES AIAA LITERATURE AWARD
NASA DRYDEN HISTORIAN RECEIVES AIAA LITERATURE AWARD
November 26,
2003
Release: 03-59
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Dr. Michael H. Gorn, chief historian at NASA Dryden Flight Research
Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., has been selected by the
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) for its
2004 Gardner-Lasser Aerospace History Literature Award for his work,
Expanding the Envelope: Flight Research at NACA and NASA.
The Gardner-Lasser award is presented annually by the AIAA for the
best original contribution to the field of aeronautical or
astronautical non-fiction historical literature published in the last
five years that deals with the science, technology or impact of
aeronautics and astronautics on society.
Gorn's work, published in 2001 by the University Press of Kentucky, is
the first major book to explore the full panorama of flight research
history. It covers Sir George Cayley's experiments with kites and
gliders in nineteenth-century England, the Wright brothers'
achievements in controlled, powered flight, the creation of the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) and its pivotal
discoveries in areas of pressure distribution, flying qualities and
transonic research. It also details the cutting-edge aeronautical
research conducted by NASA's research centers today.
"I decided to write a history of flight research when I realized that
none had ever been written," Gorn related. "Very few books cover both
the history of NASA and its predecessor institution, the NACA. I
thought this project represented a golden opportunity to tell the
full story of one of the most neglected, yet one of the most
important, aspects of aeronautical history."
Gorn has worked in the NASA history program since 1997 and became
chief historian of the Dryden Flight Research Center in 2001. He is a
former Air Force deputy historian and was the first historian of the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has written many books on
aerospace history, most recently, in collaboration with Richard P.
Hallion, an update of Hallion's work, On the Frontier: Experimental
Flight at NASA Dryden (Smithsonian Institution Press, 2003). A native
Californian, Gorn received his doctorate in history from the
University of Southern California.
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Note to Editors: A photo of Dr. Gorn is available on the NASA Dryden
Flight Research Center web site photo gallery at:
/centers/dfrc/gallery/photo/People/HTML/EC01-0280-1.html
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